An evening of hilarious and poignant one-act plays including: “Variations on the Death Of Trotsky” by David Ives –“Words, Words, Words” by David Ives — “The Hangover” by Keith Traywick — “Death Knocks” by Woody Allen — “Sure Thing” by David Ives

A Sure Thing by David Ives: This fun and quirky play explores the encounter between Bill and Betty. Through a series of opportunities, of near misses, of abject failure, Bill tries to engage Betty´s attention. Each time that the possibility of romance crashes and burns, a bell rings softly and the pair start over and try again. The characters shift and fine tune themselves, accommodating different possibilities, even different selves.

Death Knocks by Woody Allen: Nat Ackerman, seeing himself on a final mission succeeds in buying time from the inevitability of death, challenges a personified death to a game of gin rummy.

Hangover by Keith Traywick (a local playwright): This funny and awkward play provides window into the dysfunctional lives of Tammy, Bobo, Frank and June, as they find themselves in an uncomfortable predicament caused by uncontrollable lust, family loyalty and social convention.

The Death of Trotsky by David Ives: The play depicts the death of Leon Trotsky in varying ways. The play is divided into eight scenes or “variations,” which depict the last day of Trotsky’s life. True to its title, the play calls for Trotsky to die at the end of each scene, and then continues on from near where the last scene left off, usually progressing the story a bit further each time.

Words, Words, Words by David Ives: The play is about three intelligent monkeys who are put in a cage together under the experimenting eye of a never seen Dr. Rosenbaum, who has the hypothesis: “Three monkeys hitting keys at random on typewriters for an infinite amount of time will almost surely produce Hamlet” (a variation on the infinite monkey theorem).